Can rhetoric make us a better society?

The answer to the question is definitely yes. Communication makes a better society, and rhetoric makes better communication. Communicate is what we all do in everyday life, and in order to make our communication more effective, rhetoric has to be applied.

The answer is yes because we have history to prove it. Rhetoric is the ancient art of argumentation and discourse. Since the Roman Empire, philosophers have discussed logos, ethos, and pathos. During the Roman Empire, many great rhetoric works were produced: poetry, satire, comedy, tragedy, and history. All of them boosted up the quality of spiritual life at that time, therefore the society grew vigorously and flourishing under the new civilization that has been built by the help of theory of rhetoric.

Thousands year has been passed; rhetoric is still considered as the pivotal part of the study of liberal arts today. Every government plays a very important role of rhetor when they are dealing with state affairs with other governments. Even Obama used his excellent oratory to won the votes, to give confidence to his citizen. Besides politics, rhetoric also helps us in our daily life. Teachers use rhetoric to make lectures easier to understand; doctors use rhetoric to comfort their patients; neighbors use rhetoric to avoid unnecessary quarrels. Rhetoric brings us all of these advantages and it makes the society more balanced and positive; makes our country more united and peaceful.

John Adams Speech Analysis

In the movie, Mr. Adams mainly used pathos and ethos in his speech to persuade all delegates in the congress to declare independence.

Many pathos tools were used by Mr. Adams such as volume control, belief and so on. In this speech, he well controlled his volume. He turned the volume down while talking about the cost for the revolution, but he emphasized the expectation of his audience through turning the volume up many key words like “free country” and “republic”. This volume control method really helped him move the emotion of audience, made them get ready for the independence and gave them more confidence to participate the revolution.

Besides volume control, he also used belief to persuade audience in the congress. He stirred the emotion of audience by using their unhappy experience in colonies and gave them the expectation of freedom. This pathos tool stimulated audience to join the revolution.

Moreover, meet the expectation of audience was also an ethos tool to persuade people in the congress. Mr. Adams built his credibility by talking about a free country and the benefits of the independence. Those things are the expectations of audience.

What’s more? Mr. Adams said he would use his whole life for a free country. This promise would help him gain more trust since his words seem like no trick and a kind of personal sacrifice.

With these four tools and some other rhetorical appeal tools, Mr. Adams had a wonderful speech in the congress and successfully persuaded the delegates from other states to join the revolution of independence.